Harman said it will offer upgrade radio services for its 15 million OEM radios currently in cars on the road.
The company said Thursday it will offer 4G/LTE connected head unit upgrades for radios in existing cars. It will also provide some cloud based services such as Aha Radio for older radios. And it will also offer customer relationship management services.
Harman announced this new venture will be part of a Harman Information Services unit also announced Thursday. CEO Dinesh Paliwal said this will create a high margin business, offering margins two or three times the current levels from its infotainment business.
The company expects its new service business to grow fivefold within the next five years from current levels of approximately $100 million.
The auto industry appears to be catching on to the need to service and upgrade older radios.
Volvo announced at CES it will offer a car radio upgrade kit that adds a touch screen overlay, Internet radio and other features to 2010 and later Volvo car radios.
Its radio retrofit kit, is the result of a partnership with Parrot and Ericsson will be available through Volvo dealers starting in May.
Source: Harman
And so the aftermarket’s failure to fulfill the needs of this very consumer will also be lost to the OEM’s? When will the 12V specialty industry act to save itself?